Summary Of Hunger: Finding My Ways Through Generations Of Okie Migration

Different Types of Hunger Response
In the essay, “Different Types of Hunger: Finding My Ways Through Generations of Okie Migration” Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, the author, uses creative nonfiction to make a complicated and dense issue comprehensible. She does this effectively, but somewhat complexly, by breaking her essay into multiple stories that illustrates a variety of issues. The stories are told from her narrative ranging from her childhood to growing old, all while giving background knowledge of current events in the U.S., helping the reader get a sense of the raging issue in hand. By Roxanne letting us into her life, we, as the reader, get a better understanding of the economic and racial issues in a common background. This “Okie” author starts the chapter off by explaining the depiction of white trash she was given at a young age. She does

She feels as if Jimmy, her ex-husband, and his entire family cannot get past her background. The family concludes that she is a gold-digger who used Jimmy when he was vulnerable, and she is no better than white trash. Roxanne never fully says that Jimmy expressed these feelings towards her, but that he did have a stigma against the poor. This is shown through one story when Roxanne sparks up a conversation with their waitress, an old friend, and Jimmy berates her afterwards. He tears apart her old friend, calling her a prostitute, and explains if she talks to them she’ll become “one” of them. She ends the story explaining her later life, living in California and falling victim to being prejudiced and judgmental. Ultimately she feels guilty of this and decides to go back to her roots of being an “Okie.” After going back and looking into her past heritage with a friend, and famous poet, she realizes in that she should not be ashamed of her past. Then remembers that not once in her childhood she was ever hungry, so was she really